


exponential

by angryjane



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Bad Writing, Canon Divergence - Post-Thor (2011), Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Hallucinations, Humor, Jane Foster misses thor, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Random & Short, Short, Time Travel, but really really really light, idk what to tag, or time travel u can read it any way, you have to squint so fucking hard to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 06:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20887811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryjane/pseuds/angryjane
Summary: i just watched all three thor movies in the last two days. not in order, mind you, but ragnarok first, then the first one, and the second.i missed them. i missed loki. i love him. he is not in this fic. this fic is me wanting jane to get to see how badass he gets in ragnarok.anyway, what i'm trying to say is that this is really really bad lmao





	exponential

**Author's Note:**

> i just watched all three thor movies in the last two days. not in order, mind you, but ragnarok first, then the first one, and the second. 
> 
> i missed them. i missed loki. i love him. he is not in this fic. this fic is me wanting jane to get to see how badass he gets in ragnarok. 
> 
> anyway, what i'm trying to say is that this is really really bad lmao

It had been a long week: after the fiasco with Thor, Jane was  _ tired. _

She’d only known him for, what? Two days? Three? Yet still she couldn’t stop thinking about him, day in and day out. She’d liked him from the start, and then, after an Earth-shattering (literally) kiss, he’d vanished. 

That was Sunday. Today was, unfortunately, Monday, eight days out from the disappearance of the god. Coulson and SHEILD hadn’t been in touch, though they had promised to. Her stuff had magically reappeared in her lab overnight, prompting her to change all the locks and board up the windows. She felt like a hermit, stuck in this lab under the fluorescent lights. At this point she was running purely on coffee and spite, so at first she thought it was an illusion:

She was at her desk, laptop open in her lap, the words on her screen blurring as her eyes drifted shut and her mind wandered for the umpteenth time. Darcy was in the corner, headphones in, staring intently at her screen as some video played; she’d been real big on conspiracy theories lately. 

She thought the buzzing was part of the sleep-deprivation and general emotional and physical exhaustion. It was not; it was actually the thrumming from within the Earth before the Bifrost makes a connection to the greasy tile of her lab. 

Jane blinks at it, rubs her eyes. Sips her coffee. Feels the exaltation welling up in her, because that’s  _ him _ , it’s got to be. 

But then the man staring at her, once the rainbow fog and glitter clears, boots planted on the intricate symbols she’d never understand, is not him. He’s got the same build, tall and bulky; the same armor, although more battered, but there’s an eyepatch and a thicker beard, a shorter crop of hair, buzzed unevenly, choppy and dark, and maybe it is him.

“T-Thor?” She chances, not moving from her seat. A piece of equipment beeps in agreement somewhere to the left. Darcy does not look up. 

“Hello Jane, where am I?”

“You- You’re in my lab. You left, like, a week ago, and I didn’t think you were coming back-”

“What year is it?” He’s not looking at her. He’s holding an axe. 

“What… year is it? It’s 2011. You were here-”

“No, not this me. I- Jane, this isn’t the me who you saw last week. Ignore me, while I do my thing.” He looks sheepish, un-godlike. But stronger. The eyepatch gives him an air of authority.

Jane doesn’t say anything back, watching silently as he shuffles around her lab, peeking in closets and cabinets, even under the sink. She sips her coffee. Darcy laughs at a joke on her screen. Eventually, he turns to her expectantly. 

“Er, Jane… Where would I happen to be?”

“I just told you-”   
“No, I mean the other me, who was here last week.”

Her laptop slips a little in her grasp; “You’re in Asgard.” She stares at him; he looks back blankly. “..You’re in Asgard,” She repeats, “And I’m here. You left me… here, and you said you were coming back but you haven’t.” Her eyes flick up to his face hopefully; he avoids her gaze, “Or, I guess you have?”

“...No.” It’s gruff, stilted. “No, I’m not back. I’m s-” He stops short, steps back into his circle. “Jane, I never wanted to leave you. I still don’t. But…” 

She sniffs, sets her laptop down. He swallows. “Goodbye, Jane.”

And then he’s gone, in some haze of fog and shimmery. 

Now the only sound is the ticking of the clock behind her, Darcys amused breathing, and the insistent beep of the machinery. Jane is convinced it isn’t real, it’s just a dream, she must be dreaming, it’s just the lack of sleep getting to her head, but then the buzzing comes back, and the Bifrost opens back up, spitting out… a homeless man.

“Jane!” He says gleefully, waving a bottle at her. Brown liquid sloshes out ,spattering the flooring and a nearby tableful of equipment. “So good to see you! How have you- urp- been?”

A beat passes, in which Jane processes the man in front of her. “Thor?” She asks again. Her head is spinning. 

“Yes! It’s me! You look great, did I mention you looked great?”

“No.” She says tersely, eyeing him. His belly leaks out of an unbuttoned vest and there’s an indeterminate grey stain on his shorts. 

“Oh, well you-” He lurches, and the Bifrost swallows him back up. 

Another tense moment; Jane slides a hand across her forehead. It’s hot. 

There he is again, standing in the circle, rainbow mist fading back around him. He’s wearing all red and black, paint slipping in streaks down his eye where his patch will one day be. His hair is newly buzzed, he looks dazed. His fingers are glowing.

Jane doesn’t say anything this time. He disappears without noticing her.

A skinny, young Thor, moody and pouting, glaring at her without a word; a child Thor, confusing her for Frigga. Then a Thor almost like her own, except a little to the left, eyes black and skin blue. He goes too.

She waits, breath held, for the next one. He doesn’t come. 

An hour passes. She doesn’t move from her spot. 

At length, Darcy stands and stretches, glancing out the window at the rising sun, then at Jane. 

“You okay there, bud?” She raises an eyebrow. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jane blinks at her, glances into her coffee. 

“Did you see any of that?”

“Any of what?” She pauses in making herself a PopTart.

“...Nothing. Take this coffee away from me, I’m going to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> [join the discord server](https://discord.gg/nz8PMU4)  
have a nice day or face the consequences


End file.
